This Must Be One of Those Anomalies
by snarkycole
Summary: Chloe needed a change, craved it. Because this wasn’t her life anymore, or at least not a life she had ever planned for herself. Crossover w/ Fringe.


**Title: **This Must Be One of Those Anomalies (working title)

**Rating: **PG-13

**Summary: **Just as Chloe begins to wish for her life to be jumpstarted, a stranger visits her at the Isis Foundation with an unexpected offer.

**Spoilers: **Slight and vague spoilers 8x16 Turbulance and 8/17 Hex

**Disclaimer: **I do not own either the TV show _Smallville_ or _Fringe_. I'm just borrowing their characters for my own entertainment, so please don't sue me.

**Author's Notes: **I wrote this for tobywolf13's _ Chloe's Epiphany Challenge_ on livejournal, which pretty much is a challenge to give Chloe a different career than the one she got sacked with this season. It is a crossover with the Fox television show Fringe. I'm not sure at this point whether I'm going to write more chapters, as I have absolutely no idea what kind of Fringe Science mystery of the week I would write for the story. However, I really want to write some Chloe/Peter flirting, so I suppose it all just depends on the response of the readers. Oh, and I really hate my title, so if anyone can think of anything better that would be fantastic. Reviews=Love. Oh, and, this probably isn't a fic for those Chimmy supporters out there.

* * *

It was days like these when Chloe felt she was just going through the motions. Wake up, drink coffee, go to work, counsel the meteor infected, help Clark or Lois with some kind of jam, go home, get in another arbitrary argument with Jimmy, sleep, rinse and repeat. Ever since she was completely wiped of all things Brainiac it was like she had been on autopilot. She wasn't living her life anymore; she was watching it from the sidelines. She needed a change, craved it. Because this wasn't her life anymore, or at least not a life she had ever planned for herself.

Chloe didn't know if she could blame the choices she had made in the last year on the fact that she had been infected by an evil alien supercomputer, but she wanted to. Investigative journalism was in her blood, and yet her career path had now veered as far away from that as possible. Not that she didn't find fulfillment in helping those like her who struggle with the stigma of being infected by the meteor rocks, but it wasn't a job that got her blood pumping. To be perfectly honest, seeing Clark and Lois doing exactly what she had always dreamed of doing cut a little, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could take watching Lois be the Woodward to Clark's Bernstein.

Then there was her marriage to Jimmy Olsen. Chloe loved him, she really did, but not in the way you're supposed to love the man you intend on spending the rest of your life with. She had hoped Jimmy would be the type of guy she would grow into because he was the safe choice and she knew that he really did love her, but now all they ever did was fight and she found herself secretly searching for the nearest exit.

He doesn't trust her. One day he thinks there's something going on between her and Davis, the next he suspects something between her and Oliver. But that's always been his problem, his insecurities and jealousy. If not Davis or Oliver, it was Clark. She has tried to make Jimmy believe that he is the only guy for her, that she chose _him_ and wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him, but the green-eyed monster is too strong and they end up in a screaming match over all the secrets she has with these other men in her life. She knows it was the secrets that were destroying their marriage, but they weren't her secrets to share, even with her husband. She couldn't tell him that the reason why he would sometimes walk into the Isis Foundation to the sight of Oliver and her huddled close, talking in hushed voices, was because Oliver was the Green Arrow and she was helping him and the boys takedown another Luthorcorp facility that was still experimenting on the meteor infected. She couldn't tell him that her best friend Clark was the Red-Blue Blur and she was his loyal sidekick. She couldn't tell him that she felt some weird connection to Davis and was for some reason drawn to him. So she lied and gave Jimmy half-truths, and he knew she was keeping everything from him. Their marriage was falling apart, and for some reason Chloe just couldn't find enough energy to care anymore.

And then there was Clark. Ever since she had been de-Brainiaced, their relationship dynamic had been off. He was keeping something from her, something about what happened during her days under Brainiac's influence. It was the way he asked her how her memory was, specifically if she remembered anything unusual about him. Why wouldn't she remember his otherworldly origins? She remembered that she had briefly forgotten everyone in and everything about her life thanks to Brainiac's coding, but everything had been restored. How exactly was a little fuzzy, but somehow she knew it had been thanks to Clark. But he always dodged her inquiries about the specifics, no matter how persistent she was, so eventually she decided to drop the matter. However, it just wasn't that secret that had put a rift in their relationship, she felt him pulling away from her in multiple aspects. Clark didn't need her as often in his hero escapades as he had before because now he had all the resources she once did when she was working at the Daily Planet. Plus he had Lois to do some of the legwork with since after all they were partners at her old stomping grounds.

Oh god, she didn't even want to begin thinking about Lois and Clark. She saw the way they looked at each other. She knew it was illogical for her to feel this way, because her feelings for Clark were no longer of the romantic variety, but part of her heart broke when she realized that the two most important people in her life were falling for each other. And, as much as she didn't want to admit it, she was resentful of her cousin. Resentful that, without even trying, Lois had snatched up every hope and dream that Chloe had wished for as a teenager. Five years ago, journalism wasn't even a blip on Lois's radar, and now the college drop-out was a reporter for one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country. A year ago, Lois and Clark were bickering like brother and sister, and now they were giving each other meaningful, doe-eyed looks. Chloe knew that ambitions changed and feelings can grow, but there's a part of her that watches Lois do her reporter thing with Clark and can't help but feel that somewhere down the line Lois took over her life.

So here she was, wrapping up another group session at the Foundation, silently wishing for something to happen, for anything to pull her out of this zombification mode she has been stuck in for months. As the group members filed out of the Foundation, Chloe moved to the table that held drinks and snacks to clean it up. Her back was turned away from the entrance but she heard the approaching footsteps as they neared. The steps were light and smooth, and the click of the shoes made her think they were expensive. She briefly thought it was Oliver, but the weight in his steps were different and he usually would start talking as he came up from behind her.

Her conclusion was confirmed when an unfamiliar, deep voice spoke, "Are you Chloe Sullivan?"

"Depends," Chloe replied, before turning around to face her visitor. "Who's asking?"

She eyed the man cautiously, sizing him up. He was tall, a little taller than Clark even, slender, and had an air of authority about him. His suit was nice, but not overtly expensive, same with the brief case in his hand, which told Chloe that he probably wasn't some wealthy, corporate big-shot. She took in the imposing way he stood, and came to the conclusion that the African American man in front of her was government, probably F.B.I.

"Miss Sullivan, I'm Special Agent Phillip Broyles," he introduced himself, taking a step forward to offer his hand for her to shake. "I'm here from the Department of Homeland Security."

Upon this revelation Chloe to a giant step back away from the man, and eyed him suspiciously.

"I'm sorry, but considering my last run-in with people who claimed to be part of Homeland Security, I'm going to have to see some identification first," she insisted.

Agent Broyles didn't look too surprised to hear this request, and he pulled open his coat to pull his identification from his inside pocket. He handed her the badge and watched her intently as she examined it.

After her encounter with fake government agents Chloe decided to learn what the real badges and identification looked like, and with the help of her supercomputer brain she was able to learn the identifications of all the divisions of law enforcement and the government. It looked authentic, but Chloe knew people could make good fakes if motivated., so she pulled out her phone and dialed a contact that sat in her phone.

"Hi, I'd like to confirm whether an agent is a part of your department," Chloe said into the phone, and she looked up at Agent Broyles to see the surprised expression on his face. "Yes, Special Agent Phillip Broyles."

Chloe read the I.D. number on the badge and waited for confirmation.

"And is there any way you could give me a description of Special Agent Broyles?" Chloe asked as she stared down the man in front of her, noticing the smallest twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth. "Great, thanks so much for your help. Yes, I'm sure he _is _an excellent agent…Well, you know what they say, better safe than sorry."

Chloe clicked her phone off then tossed Agent Broyles his credentials back.

"So, what can I do for you, Special Agent Broyles?" she asked, gesturing to one of the empty chairs that were still formed in a circle. "As far as I know I haven't broken any federal laws lately."

"You're not in any trouble, Ms Sullivan," Broyles assured Chloe. "What do you know about Fringe sciences?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow at his non sequitur, but she was intrigued on where this conversation was going so she humored him anyway. "You mean like mind control, teleportation, genetic mutation? That sort of thing?"

"Precisely."

"Well, let's just say that I have the misfortune of having a lot of first hand experience on the subject," Chloe replied wryly. "Why do you ask?"

"In the past year, there have been over four-dozen authenticated incidences where anomalies involving fringe science have occurred. Do you remember hearing about flight 627 at the Logan airport in Boston last year?"

"Yeah, of course. Flight from Hamburg, Germany that lost contact three hours into its flight. It entered our airspace radio silent, and when it was escorted in, it was reported to have stains on the window and no signs of life. The autopilot landed the plane right on schedule, and it was discovered that all of its hundred plus passengers had been killed due to some kind of hazardous material that infected everyone.."

"That's what the government issued in a press release," Broyles confirmed as he pulled a file out of his briefcase and moved into the chair next to Chloe so he could show her what he had. "Most of what I'm about to show you has not been made public."

Broyles opened the folder up and Chloe glanced over at the picture that was on top. She would have wretched had it been live rather than just a photograph, and she was glad she had decided to skip on cupcakes the snack table had provided for the group session earlier. The picture showed the insides of flight 627, every passenger dead, unrecognizable. Their crumpled clothes lied in gelatin, blood, and bone.

"A man reconstructed a pathogen that caused the skin of all the passengers to rapidly degenerate and dissolve until all that was left was their bones," Broyles told her before flipping the pictures over to the next one. This one was of a diner full of people who looked like they had cried blood from their eyes. "In Milford, Massachusetts a woman with the rare disease Bellini's lymphocemia was kidnapped and given a drug that made her brain emit a microwave burst, killing her and the patrons of a diner she stumbled into."

Broyles flips that photograph over to reveal a new one, this time of a field of dead cattle, dozens of them.

"Last April outside Houston, two- hundred and six head of cattle were found dead. Autopsies revealed they were all missing lungs. No surgical marks. No signs of foul play."

He flips to the next set of photos; a happy-looking family.

"Last August, a family from Toronto vanished while on a road trip to the United States. Then, two hours after they were last seen at a rest stop," Broyles explained as he turned to the next image- police photos of burn marks on the ground and burned human remains. "These charred remains of four people were found near Shanghai. The dental records and wedding rings matched those of the missing couple."

Broyles continues flipping through the images: a corpse which has been turned inside out, a tree covered in locusts, an unidentifiable creature, and Chloe is mystified on how all of these events are connected to each other.

"Needless to say, strange things are happening. It is a new, real, and continuing phenomenon which the world's top scientific minds in research and technology have dubbed _The Pattern_."

"What does this all have to do with me?" asked Chloe, confused at why Agent Broyles was telling her all of this.

"I've read your file, Ms. Sullivan. You've dealt with numerous incidents that could fall into the Pattern. I believe you could be a vital asset to my team."

"Your team?" repeated Chloe, astonished at where the conversation had gone.

"Since last May I've been heading up a Homeland taskforce called the Fringe Division in Boston. We've been investigating these anomalies. In the last six months the Pattern has gotten larger and these anomalies are occurring more frequently. I felt it was necessary to find more individuals who could play key roles in our investigation."

"And you think I am one of those individuals?" Chloe asked in disbelief.

"Yes, I do," nodded Agent Broyles. "Ms. Sullivan, I've looked at your articles on the meteor infected that have run rampant in Kansas and read about the advances you made at the Daily Planet before you were let go; you're a thorough investigator with the tenacity to keep digging until you reveal the truth. I believe you're just what my team needs."

"Are you sure this isn't one of those anomalies you've been talking about?" Chloe asked, half-jokingly, earning a small chuckle from Agent Broyles as he closed the folder shut then slipped it back into his briefcase.

"I'm sure," Agent Broyles replied. He stood up from his chair and reached inside his coat for something in his inner pocket. He pulled out a small white card and handed it to Chloe, who slowly took it from his grasp. "Think about it. Give me a call when you've reached a decision. Just don't take too long; the world needs your help Ms. Sullivan."

He outstretched his hand one more time, and this time Chloe shook it. Agent Broyles turned to walk towards the exit, leaving Chloe to stand there replaying the conversation that just took place. Chloe stared at the card in her hand, wondering how this man could think that she would have any useful skills to contribute to some X-files-esque subdivision of F.B.I. Chloe was not a scientist, nor did she have any sort of law enforcement background, so she couldn't fathom what Special Agent Broyles thought she could add to his team. But there was a voice in the back of her head telling that this was exactly what she needed. She'd been looking for something to jumpstart her life, a new purpose to motivate her, and magically Agent Broyles appeared with an offer to start a new life in Boston saving the world, one scientific anomaly at a time. So, she did what any rational person would do in her situation, she ran after Broyles.

"When can I start?" she asked him as she caught up to him in the hallway just outside the Isis Foundation's entrance.

Agent Broyles turned to face her, and Chloe noticed the almost-smug look on his face.

"How does Monday sound?"

That was five days from now.

"Perfect. Though, your people will have to expedite some sort of living arrangements for me," she replied.

"Consider it done," Broyles replied.

"Good. Oh, and just so we're clear, I will not be relegated to being some desk jockey researcher, I have to be out on the field when I need to be."

"I figured as much."

"Great. Then I guess I'll call you tomorrow to iron out all of the details," Chloe told Agent Broyles.

"I'll be waiting. Welcome to the team, Chloe Sullivan."

With that, Agent Broyles turned and continued his walk down the hallway to the elevators, leaving Chloe by herself.

Chloe spun around and headed back inside the Isis Foundation with an excited grin on her face. In five days she would be starting a new life in Boston, Massachusetts, doing important world-saving work. Her celebratory high was interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing, and was killed when she saw the name on her caller I.D. It was Lois. How was she going to explain to her cousin that out of the blue she got offered a new job that would force her to put a whole time zone between the two of them and accepted it with little hesitation? And what was Clark going to say, not that he seemed to need her much these days? Oh god, and Jimmy. How could she leave when her marriage was in shambles, shouldn't she be trying to salvage what was left of it? She let out a frustrated sigh as she sunk into the sofa in the front of the Isis Foundation's offices. It was going to be hard, leaving her friends and family for a new life in an unfamiliar city, but she knew it was something she had to do. Because she had to start living her life again, even if it meant leaving everyone and everything she knew behind in the process.


End file.
